This England

EU, the ultimate statist thieves

Friday, 30 January 2009

The Government have announced it's grand scheme "Broadband for All" as some kind of great technological wonder for the UK taxpayer. In reality, this is part of it's "Big Brother Surveillance" initiative.What better way to spy on our emails and surfing habits than to have everything nicely packaged in one place.

It's reported that this scheme will be financed by major operators, who will of course report every single little move we make to the Stasi.

Additionally, it is also an opportunity for the government to slap on a nice licensing fee, provide more government propaganda via adverts and popups and charge you for the privilege. The Daily Mail's main story today has concentrated on the fact that each household will be liable for a £20 "pirate tax" to cover illegal downloading, whether you participate in the activity or not.

It should be noted by the British Government that not all of us use P2P for illegal filesharing. The environment also allows users to share a myriad of free software and literature, which would not otherwise be easily found or downloaded. This sort of filesharing is vital for libraries, schools and technology developers alike.

For those who are interested and perhaps under the assumption that all EU countries are operating in the same criminal way as the UK, think again.

In Spain the Spanish Supreme Court recently ruled that personal data associated with an IP address could only be disclosed in the course of a criminal investigation or for public safety reasons (Productores de Música de España v. Telefónica de España SAU).[46] File sharing is legal for private use if it is done without any profit purpose and a police chief of the technology squad has publicly said "No pasa nada. Podéis bajar lo que queráis del eMule. Pero no lo vendáis." ("It's ok. You can download whatever you want with eMule. But don't sell it.").

I have been reliably informed that as long as I stick to downloading overnight, nobody gives a shit!